Thread by Tina Rivers Ryan

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I’ve been teasing this, but holding off on a big thread until we could announce the full artist list. Which is now! 😃

Over the past year, I’ve been working for the @BuffaloAKG on the first US museum survey of the leading artists who have engaged with blockchain technologies.

The artists in this show use a range of tools (from Photoshop and Word to Touch Designer, Processing, and DALL•E) and make works in a variety of formats (from PDFs and PNGs to GIFs, glTF models, and SVGs), collectively representing the possibilities of digital art beyond jpgs
Some of them are exploring new possibilities for figurative and narrative art, like @mitchellfchan, @AmirHFallah, @auriea, @osinachi, and @thesarahshow
Others like @soficrespo91 and @entangledlight, @REAS, @annespalter, and @ix_shells are working with algorithmic and generative systems and processes in all their guises, including AI
And then there are the artists who are exploring blockchains themselves and related ideas like Web3 and the metaverse (or as LaTurbo says, exoverse)—like @laturboavedon, @isthisanart_, @dennnnnnnnny, and @rheaplex
As I think is obvious to all, too much of the recent conversation around what these artists do has been preoccupied with money and the market; we also need to talk about how they creatively and critically engage the aesthetic potential and social consequences of new technologies.
To that end, this show features 13 new works that are each in dialogue with a work from the @BuffaloAKG’s iconic collection of modern and contemporary art, dealing with topics such as spiritual transcendence, cultural hybridity, resource extraction, and the nature of language
This show is a big tent (and it could have been bigger!, though not if I wanted to sleep 🫠), and I’m incredibly grateful to every artist in it for agreeing to make and show new work within this “peer to peer” framework and being open to dialogue with me throughout.
In addition to being a show of cutting-edge artists, Peer to Peer is also something of an experiment for the museum, which (like most museums) is exploring what it might look like to present file-based artworks and exhibitions on the internet and reach new global audiences
Especially on the internet and with digital art, context matters. We are happy to be partnered with @FeralFile, which has emerged as one of the most thoughtful online spaces for curated exhibitions of file-based work.
Feral File is also a sales platform for editioned digital art, and each of the works will be available for sale at the end of the show. Thanks to the generosity of the artists, 50% of the revenue will go to the museum—a kind of digital upgrade to typical museum benefit auctions.
These funds will go towards our operating costs when we reopen in 2023, with an expanded campus that includes a state-of-the-art media art gallery and our first-ever media art studio classroom.
The museum is very honored to have benefited from the guidance and support of many key people who are committed to forging a new art world while upholding our shared values of respect for the past and critical dialogue—as suggested in the title “peer to peer.”
@ArtOnBlockchain was the first person to step up and believe in this project, and I’m so thrilled to say he is our Presenting Sponsor, along with @artxcode_io, led by @sofiagarcia_io, who has been a key collaborator and will be installing these works in Miami with me in TWO WEEKS
I also want to shout-out the colleagues of mine who have been pushing the envelope wrt to showing work on and about blockchains at other institutions, from @ChristianePaul2 at the Whitney to @epoch_gallery at LACMA;
Peer to Peer is entering into a dialogue established by their ongoing efforts and by institutional shows such as @dennnnnnnnny’s Proof of Work, @JesseDamiani’s Proof of Art, and Daniel Heiss and @Rosen__’s CryptoArt at @zkm_collections,
and which will be continued in the months and years to come, no doubt—as museums continue to step into the role of being spaces where emerging technologies can be tested and contested.
If you will be in Miami for Art Week, please join us on Tuesday 11/29 as we celebrate this show: buffaloakg.org/events/peer-peer%E2%80%94launch-party
And then come back to the same spot on Thursday 12/1 for a free brunch and panel with some of the artists in the show, hosted by @DASLondon_ : buffaloakg.org/events/peer-peer-panel-and-brunch
Oh btw #PeertoPeerAKG if you want to help spread the word or share your thoughts !
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